“Not today, bitch,” I said beneath my breath.
The eagle screamed. Caerwen threw a glance at me and smiled.
“You are more, lady,” she murmured, and although I didn’t ask, she meant I was more than the failles she’d met over the centuries. The frightened girls who sought refuge in a wrinkle that slowed time and kept them hidden.
I flexed my fingers, tried syphoning and felt the flow of sparkling… exuberance. Traces of Fee’s puppy magic.
As we walked on, woven dreamcatchers hung from the trees, beautiful creations crafted with sticks, twine, beads, and feathers.
“Watch out for those.” Effa’s warning matched the intuition shivering through me. “Traps. Nothing good from them.”
“Don’t dreamcatchers protect you from nightmares?”
“Not her dreamcatchers.”
“You have no weapons,” I said. “Aren’t your worried?”
Effa drew a circle in the air with her finger. Vines popped from the ground, twisting into a thorny hedgerow. Then she snapped her fingers, and the obstruction dissolved away.
From where Caerwen stood, the grinding rocks rumbled. Massive boulders rocked into new locations, inches from where they’d been. The grotto nymph huffed out a satisfied laugh, claiming victory as she glanced back at Effa—who waggled her fingers. Caerwen’s imposing boulders softened beneath a blanket of tiny pink flowers. Obviously, nymphs had their own jealousies and battle techniques. Metis and Aine weren’t the only ones who resorted to the ridiculous.
And what was the harm in that? In a battle waged with petals instead of blood?
Except that petals would not stop Amal.
I skimmed my gaze over the empty landscape, the distant trees that ended in a violet haze. The bowl of the sky.
A prison, Noa. This is not a benevolent place.
“How will we find her?” I asked, a weight settling in my spine.
“She finds us,” said Caerwen without stopping the waver in her voice.
I asked, “Do you ever miss your grotto?”
“For centuries, I was like the Bone Woman, trying to put things back together, breathe in new life. I failed.”
“What was it like—when your grotto thrived?”
“Like the dream you have right before waking. When the sun is warming away the lingering mist. The palest violet glows with pink light. Then the hint of blue, like the bird’s egg in spring. The hope in the rabbit, fresh from the bower. Faeries flit and dance with the dandelion puffs. Music flows from the dripping water, falling from the rocks, and you hear the laugher in the stream.”
I was afraid to speak. Even Effa remained silent as the grotto nymph shuddered.
“Then the dream changes, and what you hear is the stomping of booted feet. The clamor of weapons and rough shouts of those who destroy and think nothing of it. The loss. And the ground aches and screams in agony until you cannot stand to be there. Cannot stand to feel.”
I reached out and hugged her. Her scent was that of growing things. I drew in that connection to the earth and syphoned the hint of pain she carried. Offered to her what she’d always offered to me: release.
“We won’t let Amal destroy your world,” I whispered.
“No.” She shook her head as she stepped back. “You are the strong one, lady. It is why Aine was afraid. Why Metis was, too. And why they both cherish the hope they see in you.”
“I am ordinary, Caerwen.”
“Called to do extraordinary things.” She covered my fingers where I gripped the child’s toy, a wooden woman with sticks on her back. “You own the power of the queens.”
We approached a cave not unlike that belonging to the Gemini Witches. Tall standing stones framed the entrance. No iron collection box marked the path. No sense of weeping magic. Inside the main cavern, I studied the sandy cave floor. Scattered white bones seemed random, and yet, each odd, disjointed grouping had been assembled into… something. I might have drawn my weapon if Caerwen had not placed her hand on mine, shaking her head.
“Don’t awaken the magic,” she murmured. I didn’t understand until a small, pathetic thing wobbled out of the shadows. Made of bone and nothing more, the shape suggested a mix of several animals. The head of a fawn with delicate bones. Front legs splayed and awkward. And too short for what would become a magnificent deer. The long, jointed tail flicked with feline restlessness, and a softening entered my heart for something so mismatched.
